FOCAL legends The Verbivores in Friday’s Only Connect final – don’t miss it!

There’s quite a big overlap between Countdown and other quiz shows – so you might have seen FOCAL players on anything from 15 to 1, to The Weakest Link, to Pointless.

Former CO:LON organiser Michael Wallace was on the Only Connect winning team in Series 8, back in 2013, and tomorrow night, a trio of keen Countdowners will try to follow in his footsteps and take home the Series 12 title! Phyl Styles, Tom Cappleman and captain Graeme Cole, aka The Verbivores, take on the Cosmopolitans in tomorrow night’s final.

All three team members have been on Countdown and have been to FOCAL events this year: Tom and Graeme are series champions, while Phyl was unlucky not to make the Series 65 finals in 2011 with 6 wins (incidentally, this was the series that Graeme won). Phyl and Tom have also both starred on University Challenge, albeit a few decades apart.

The Verbivores broke the ‘biggest comeback’ record in their second game, coming back from 7 points down to snatch victory in the Missing Vowels round. They’ve also had the longest possible path to the final, as the show features a number of possible repechage games for high-scoring losing teams. No other team has played this many games in the show’s history. Having taken the long way round, can they emerge as victors? Tune into BBC2 at 8.30pm tomorrow night to find out!